New Photos And Video About Working Conditions At Foxconn By French Photojournalist Are Exploitative

It’s close to Christmas, but not so close that there’s no stupid to report, so here’s your Yuletide dose: French site La Vie and photohournalist Jordan Pouille are again claiming that Foxconn is Hell on Earth.

Not that you’d come to that conclusion yourself, as the photoessay itself consigns itself to bookending shots of the barred windows at Foxconn’s dormitories (to prevent suicides) with shots of workers going to work, performing coordinated dances, shopping at malls, listening to pop music and shopping for food. What an Auschwitz, right?

There’s nothing new here, short of Pouille’s own breathless denunciation of Foxconn with all the vivre of a modern day Sinclair. For example, here he implies that the Chinese army is ready at any point to storm in and brutally suppress an uprising… even though there’s not only no evidence that there will be such an uprising, but that the Chinese army is nearby for that reason:

And in case any social outburst happens, Foxconn may rely on People’s Liberation Army’s support. The folks are setting up a small artillery regiment… just two blocks away from Longhua factory’s main gate. Merry Christmas

Note the bolded weasel word. This is a guy who is being sensationalist without being honest. Looking beyond the breathlessly denunciatory copy, it looks as if Foxconn employees enjoy the same (or arguably better) conditions as the workers of any large factory. In fact, the only discomfort we see from employees in the photo series seems to be because Pouille has aimed cameras at tired people who have just woken up or gotten off of work.

Totally stupid. Foxconn may well not treat its employees as well as they should, but this exploitative profile doesn’t prove a damn thing… and is self-evidently disingenuous behind.

About the author:

John Brownlee is a Contributing Editor. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.